Remembering Whitney: My Story of Love, Loss, and the Night the Music Stopped is written by Whitney Houston's mother, Cissy Houston, a stellar Gospel singer in her own right who performed backup for such greats as Aretha Franklin, Van Morrison and Elvis Presley. However, Cissy was always aware of the price of fame, something that she saw in the people that she worked with. That's why she was determined to live a normal life which was moderately successful but didn't put her in the public eye all the time.
However, as she points out, her daughter, Whitney, chose a different path, and Cissy continues to wonder if she should have discouraged Nippy (her nickname for Whitney) to step out of the limelight while she still could. The book shows how Cissy and Whitney weren't that close, and Cissy had a stern attitude which didn't always invite confidences. Even when Cissy finally showed up at Whitney's house in 2005 with the police and forced her daughter into rehab, she felt that Whitney resented her for this action. She writes, "I think some part of her couldn't stand that I had made her reveal her worst side to me."
Unlike others, Cissy doesn't entirely blame Whitney's marriage to Bobby Brown for her ultimate deterioration; Whitney was already doing drugs by the time Bobby came into her life. This is not to say that Cissy is a big fan of Bobby's; she was especially offended by his number, "Humpin' Around." But according to her, Whitney was her own person who made her own choices for which no one else can be blamed.
This is a gripping account of Whitney Houston's descent into drug use and her deteriorating mental processes as she became more successful. Whitney was larger than life and also remote, pushing away people's concern about what was happening to her. This, combined with Cissy's own no-nonsense attitude created some distance between the mother and daughter. But the mother's love for her daughter shines through the memoir anyway, as does her regret that she wasn't able to help her daughter overcome her demons.
Emily "Cissy" Houston was the eighth child of Nitcholas and Delia Mae Drinkard, born in Newark, NJ. Cissy's mother died when she was five and her father when she was eighteen, after which she went to live with her older sister, Lee Warwick, mother to Dionne and Dee Dee Warwick. Cissy was married twice, once to Freddy Garland with whom she had a son and the second time to John Russell Houston Jr. a Newark City Administrator and Entertainment Executive, with whom she had her daughter Whitney. Despite the fact that Cissy worked mostly as a backup singer, she has been the recipient of a Grammy for Best Traditional Soul Gospel Album.
"I know that it had to hurt Cissy Houston lossing her daughter, and it broke my heart to see her mother's face on tv. I cringe everytime I hear a mother lose her child. I knew it took alot for her to write this book. I don't want to remember Whitney for her habits, but for the good things. Her beautiful voice, her giving to mutiple charties, seeing soldiers oversees. Her being a mother, daughter and sister. We are slaves to whatever controls us, at times I felt like in the book her mother was in denial and yet sometimes honest that her daughter had her battles."
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Rhina (4 out of 5 stars)